A Moving Target

When she didn't move, he thought perhaps that he had been too harsh. It took quite a while to get used to the burning, and an even longer time to internalize the idea that it would happen again, many times, until the body had grown apathetic to the piercing pains of battle. It was why he had asked her about her training. Like a white rose amidst a red battlefield, she sat, recuperating - an object that did not belong in the setting. At this point he was unsure of whether to turn and leave, or sit with her and wait for her recovery. Etiquette was never his strong suite. Perhaps he should apologize for throwing the boomerang? It was a cheap shot, or at least, it seemed that way now that she was sitting down, hurt by the wound he had inflicted from behind.

Stepping closer to her, he was about to offer her his hand, to help her up, when she spoke. He didn't stop in his tracks, but he wanted to. He wanted to turn away and never see her likeness again. Did she know all along, and was just here fucking with him, to see if he'd crack? Was this all some ploy that the rich used to spend their time while toying with the poor? When he knelt down in front of her, he searched in her eyes for the answer to that question. But he could not read people the way Tsuki could, or read clues the way Yukio did. And for a moment, in front of the defenseless girl, the man with a hundred weapons felt unarmed.

That Chimera child's name was Junichiro.

"Tell me more about you, Megami. More about the Kuraistu family."

Junichi and Ichiro were the names of the two boys that had been drugged, lobotomized, and nailed down until the long and painful chimera spell was complete. The public had bought it up. It really did look like an angel from far away. Large - larger than a man should be, and young still like a boy. But they had been using some sort of mind control while putting him out for display. When the control wore off, his body deteriorated, and the large pale parody of a human spent the rest of his days crying aimlessly in the cold orphanage cell.

Asura had been terrified of the thing at first, and nothing he did could properly shake off the irrational fear of something that looked so hideous. But one night, it uttered the first word that he would ever hear it utter.

Mother

Who our mothers are and what they do are not our faults. And the impossible urge to find them when they abandon us was not a strange feeling to Asura. The crumpled picture of his mother had always been with him, and after more than a decade of searching, even when he was convinced that she would not even recognize him if he found her, he still wanted to keep looking. So who was he to distrust Megami for trusting her own mother?"That is, if you're okay talking about that kinda' stuff... just don't get too preachy on me."His smile was an admission of defeat. The sins of the father do not fall unto the son.

Megami brought her hand to her chin, as if stroking an imaginary beard that was not there. She become deep in thought, wondering what she could tell that man that would suffice as an explanation of herself. She wondered what he even wanted to know... She actually knew very little of her family, only what they told her. So she supposed she would tell him what she did know. What her parents had instilled in her as a child. "Weeell, mom used to tell me our job was to bring God's message to the world. She always said the world could only improve with God's message and I've always believed that to be the one absolute truth." she broke off into a whisper and scooting closer now, lowering her voice to where it was just audible. "But... My parents always told me a world of shinobi can not accept us... That a world of shinobi was full of false prophets and false idols. Witchcraft. Ninjutsu that does not draw upon the power of scripture is, after all, just witchcraft to my family." she murmured, pondering her own thoughts now.

"My mother always taught me that love and acceptance was the centerpiece of God's divine plan. But my father disagrees. He says that discipline is necessary and often tells me that I was not born to bring peace but to bring a sword... I'm not all too sure what he means by that. I can only hope that the answer will come to me with time, you know?" she sighed and looked up at the sky, closing her eyes. "We've been on many missionaries! We've done a lot of good for the world! I used to enjoy watching all the good my family did but there were times I wasn't allowed to see certain things. Times I wasn't told certain things. But that's okay, they told me I'm not ready yet. Which I understand." she giggled, noting how young yet whimsical she sounded.

Megami smiled at him and suddenly frowned, a look of despair crossing her face. "One thing... I always wondered... Was why some of the angels looked so sad..." she bit her lip, trying to hold back tears but failed, the salty liquid welling up in the corners of her eyes as they started streaming down her cheeks. She wiped them away and shook her head quickly, trying to regain her composure. "I'm sorry, I get emotional sometimes... I'm not being too preachy, am I? I'm not talking too much?"

Like a child listening intently to the explanation of the universe, Asura leaned his chin on his forearms, and his elbows on his bent knees, absorbing her side of things. A family of preachers that also happened to have a prophet child. Convenient, he muttered mentally. This distrusting nature of the Demon's was justified, but somehow it felt superfluous. When she looked up at the sky, he continued watching her, the same expression of curiosity painting his face.

He didn't make a single noise when she talked about her mother. The only image in his mind of that woman was how she had shut the door, and from behind the wooden frame she ordered that the 'Demon boy' be removed from Noa. Guess it's a bit of an inconvenience to have some street dog interact with the golden child. And while he wished it hadn't turned into what it had, he was willing to nod along with her narration of her past. Why had he asked? Was he hoping to find something that cemented the fact that she knew? Was he hoping to trap her with her words? Instead he had gotten the truth, from someone who could not suspect what the Demon had in mind.

"It must've been tough,"he heard himself say before he could stop it. Having suddenly made up his mind, he scooted even closer and picked her up, bridal style, off of the ground. At some point between having met her again and now, he had grown to accept that she was innocent. She was Junichiro, marked by the ambitions of her past, her future surrounded by thorns and swords all laced with failure and rejection. Asura was Junichiro as well, a cursed child born to a clan that gave him away, destined now to feel nothing as clearly as he felt hate."It's my fault that you're hurt, so I'll drop you off...,"a hesitation marked the pause in his sentence, and revealed the nature of his second guessing. This wasn't so different from what had happened a decade ago, after-all."... A few blocks away from your house."

And while he didn't wait for her consent or refusal, he would put her down had she wished it. It wasn't his intention to stir up any trouble. But then again, trouble had a way of finding him.

Megami blushed deep red, hesitant to say anything as she became quite flustered, almost unable to speak at all. She finally just bit her bottom lip lightly and nuzzled into his chest, getting comfortable and murmuring, "No... I want you to bring me home... Not a few blocks away, home..." she murmured, quietly. A little scared she was asking for too much she bit her tongue and changed what she was saying to something completely different, trying to act different as well. "You don't have to carry me, though! And if you want, you don't have to take me all the way home, I don't know!" she said a little frazzled. She honestly wasn't sure why he didn't want to drop her off at home, she wondered.

"If you're scared that my parents might think you followed us here or something... They're far away on a missionary trip. They left me here alone..." she whispered, not sure if it would make a difference or not. After all, to her Asura appeared somewhat cold and distant. He honestly didn't seem like the type to open up and speak of what was on his mind easily. Not only that but she doubted she could be the one to convince him to change such a defining characteristic of his person, even for a moment. She wanted to comb his mind a little more, get more details out of him but she knew that wasn't how one treated friends. He would tell her on his own time and she was okay with that. 'But it's killing me to wait for him to decide to open up...' she thought.

As they walked away from the clearing and into the heart of the forest, towards the training grounds, he felt a pang of disappointment. Some part of him wanted to see her mother. It wanted to show his crocodilian smile of defiance to her face. Look at me now. Look at how I hold your daughter and let your mind fill in the gaps. Admittedly, it was one of the more tame thoughts he had about the girl's family. But having decided that the girl herself was innocent, he supposed that this likely extended to her parents. After-all, if he hadn't been sold to Noa's water labor factories, he might not ever have caught the eye of the owner. And if the pedophile owner had never ordered for his purchase, he might never have escaped and joined the traveling circus. In a way, without her mother's irrationality, he would not have been here.

That's when he felt her head against his chest. It was a strange feeling, like a butterfly landing in your palm. The fragility of the subject made it hard not to be delicate in your motions. And so, trying not to cause her too much motion, he strode out of the forest and past the training grounds. He would ask her, occasionally, for directions, as even a simple street address flew right over his head -- being so new to the village. Training all on her own while her parents were away, he thought, what an easy way to get kidnaped... or worse. While a few people stopped to watch the man carrying this girl under the quiet afternoon sun, most of them walked on by, making whatever assumptions they wanted to. He didn't really know how to hold her in a less romantic way, and thought now that perhaps he should've just propped her up over his shoulders like a sack of soil.

But it was nice to have someone leaning on his chest. It reminded him of something that he couldn't quite place, a part of his black past that had not quite been revealed. Reaching the doorsteps to her home, he looked at it as one looks at a museum, reminded suddenly of his tiny apartment filled with fast food and dirty magazines. "We're here, Megami."He said, quietly, placing her down before her door. He was quiet because he didn't want others to look and see him, and quiet because the walk to her home had made him want to be gentle. When a butterfly lands in your palm, you don't clench your fist. He kept his head lowered and his hands behind his back, a mannerism he had picked up while interacting with the higher class as a mercenary.

"I'm glad I uh... I stumbled into you."

So many years of showing strangers a picture of his mother had gone by, and so many shaking heads had broken his heart more times than it should have been broken. It felt like a cold breathe of relief that he had finally found someone from his memory, like the long-awaited proof that everything up until then had not been a figment of his machinations. At least there was something in his past that did not spurn his very name.

Megami laid cradled in his arms, completely oblivious to the strange stares and glares that they received. Instead, she could only focus on the musky scent that filled her nose, the smell of the man whom carried her. She couldn't quite tell what it was about it that appealed to her but it was the closest she had really gotten to someone in a while. After all, who wanted to get close to the psycho messiah girl...? She shook her head, purging her mind of depressing thoughts in an instant. She would not allow herself to be overtaken by tears. Not when she had finally reconnected with someone whom actually showed a little liking to her. It was something new... Something different.

She sighed when they finally made it to her house and she crawled out of his arms slowly, stumbling a bit against the front door as she tried to maintain a proper footing. Having been carried the whole way had made her feel a bit off-balance but it took only mere moments to regain said balance. She sighed and smiled at him, not really wanting to leave him. She felt a pang of guilt leaving him at her doorstep while she entered this large homely abode of hers. It felt wrong. She bit her bottom lip and looked up at him, pulling out her key and staring at it as she unlocked the door, opening it for him and smiling gleefully. "You can come in." she giggled happily, hoping desperately that he would accept the invite so that she wouldn't look too stupid.

"We haven't really gotten much of a chance to talk... I'd like to reconnect a bit more, if that's okay with you?" she asked, not sure of how he would respond to the aspect of further discussing things. She felt almost as if there was something big he was leaving out. Something she should know but she couldn't put her finger on it. Nay, not that. She could not even hope to remotely place her finger near it. She was oblivious and ignorant, even so much so that she didn't know that about herself. She was trusting and kind, a gentle person. Even when she was mean, she was never serious. Things hurt her... People hurt her... But one person who didn't hurt her was the man who stood before her, despite being the last one to gash her in the back. It was ironic, no?

If betrayal came with its own physical wound, then he'd have a few scars on his back as well. But he healed quickly, and it was this quick healing that allowed him to jerk his head up and look at her in disbelief when she invited him in. His expression read something along the lines of 'what?', but his voice had left him. Without giving it much thought he stammered out,"Um, okay? If you're sure..."It was entirely likely that this girl had grown more than he had in their time apart. After all, she was in a village, with walls and guards and turrets and officers. These things afforded one with some semblance of a safe upbringing, where one had time to mature. Demon, pushing his shoes off at the steps of her door and stepping inside, had learned many things in quite the wrong way. So hopefully she would pardon any gaping holes in his manners, once their setting changed so drastically.

But then again, even after having spent so long within the halcyon of Kumo, it wasn't as if she lived any bit of a normal life either.

Looking about the large home as if it had writing on the walls, he hesitated to move past the entrance. But then he looked to her and remembered what she had said when apologizing for having ever touched him. Is that what her mother told her? Is that what she believed? "I... You...,"he wanted to ask again if it was okay for him to be here, but realized that would only alienate her further. How do two outcasts interact besides pretending not to be outcasts at all?"You should show me around."He might have said something more had he been more aware of the turmoil inside of her. But he was as good with women as he was with cooking, and the plethora of instant ramen in his kitchen bore testimony against him. So while it didn't seem strange to him, it might seem insane to her that he had wrapped his arm around her shoulder, pulled her in, while his other hand slid into his pocket -- as if they had been childhood friends.

Megami kicked off her shoes and took gentle steps forward into the home, almost feeling foreign to it herself. If feeling awkward was contagious, she was almost sure that she had caught it from Asura. She giggled timidly and almost lost all the breath that she possessed when he pulled her in by her shoulder, her face turning almost completely red. "Meep..." she whispered, immediately recovering from the sound with, "Oh, yeah, of course!" she giggled, her cheeks still a bright red hue. She curled her arm snugly around him, looping it underneath his as she led him around the room. The entrance itself was a long corridor with many doors, decorated with a large variety of crosses and the such. She skipped over a few doors, knowing which ones were locked away, sealing from her eyes and which ones she was allowed to enter.

The first door she opened was to the dining room, a large room with a table in the center. Surrounding it were numerous chairs and alongside it was the relatively large kitchen, fully stocked with a variety of assorted foods and spices. Some were exotic and foreign, others were native to the Lightning Country. She prodded his belly with her finger, poking it as she asked him, "Are you hungry, Asura?" she was genuinely curious as she herself felt a bit hungry. After being minorly wounded and after recovering from the fight itself, it felt as though there was a large gaping hole in the midst of her stomach.

She wondered if they would be able to discuss things further while eating. She had heard that most families engaged in conversation at the dinner table, though beyond prayer, hers never did. They believed in silence at the dinner table, something Megami honestly despised. She was hoping to ask Asura a large assortment of questions and hopefully get some actual answers this time. She couldn't stand not knowing what was on his mind or going on in his head. She wasn't sure how he felt, what he was thinking, or even a smidgen of his past. It was honestly about time for her to learn more about him and she intended to do so over dinner! "If so... I'm a pretty good cook? I took lessons, after all." she said with a gleeful smile, remembering the very many lessons she had had to take as a child which included expert cooking lessons.

The doors that stayed locked seemed somehow more interesting than the ones that opened to his eyes. The house was larger than he knew what to do with, and the corridor that lead them along seemed menacing now, strictly aware of his presence like an unwanted stain of red on a canvas of white. When they arrived at her kitchen and she offered food, he did not wait the appropriate amount of time before accepting. Instead, quickly and bluntly, he said,"Yes yes holy shit I'm so hungry."Holy shit? Really? Out of all things to say? He turned his face towards hers and planted a long and childish kiss against her left cheek. The instant ramen was doing a number on his eating habits and he had been dying for some home-made food. Though if her parents found out, maybe he'd be dying in a literal sense."If the food's any good, you'll get another one."Now they were even.

Pulling away from her and propping himself on top of the kitchen counter, he folded his legs into a pretzel and ran his hand up and down the length of his stomach. Even the free meals they gave you on over-night missions was shit. The least they could've done was spend an extra dime on commodities for their Shinobi. He would watch as she cooked, while his eyes scouted the place haphazardly. But soon into her cooking it would become hard for him to occupy his mind with things other than what she had called him inside for.

She wanted to know more about him.

Well that's a catch 22, isn't it? Lie to her and you risk breaking her trust. Tell her the truth and you risk breaking something more. He allowed his legs to unfold when his mind slipped into pensiveness, and as they dangled from the ledge of the counter he sat on, he ran through the different ways he could phrase this without ever lying."I've been around."Vague start."You know, from job to job, place to place."Good, good, still vague and still not a lie."Mostly killed time as a hired hand... doing some dirty work here and there."

Taking laundry to the wash was dirty work. Getting nailed up to the walls of Oyashira for trying to assassinate their new Prime Minister was something else.

"It's not a pretty story..."no, no, that's not very vague. Back track."I've had to do a lot of bad things up 'till now."Idiot. He watched the floor of her kitchen, seeing his blurry image reflected upon the tile. I wonder just how forgiving your God is, he heard himself think, suddenly aware of where he was.

"Yes yes holy shit I'm so hungry." Megami heard him respond rather quickly, not taking even a moment of hesitation to think on it. She giggled softly and waltzed over to the fridge, opening the door and retrieving a few items to sit on the counter. Her focus on the ingredients was particularly why the next thing he did took her by complete surprise; a kiss on the cheek. Her face went completely red and she stumped ever-so-slightly in her steadfast standing, almost becoming flustered; nay, she became so very flustered. She took out a knife without thinking and quickly starting chopping lettuce, dicing and mincing it cleanly and evenly with the precision of someone who had cooked for generations. She turned and twisted the knife, cocking it up then down once more as she cut the lettuce to smaller and smaller pieces.

"Oh! Urm... Uh... I'll have you know the food will be fantastic!" she shouted proudly, blushing madly now. She looked quite the sight, with her face flushed as red as a tomato. She pulled out the tomatoes, in fact, that she had laid to her left and began to dice those as well, prepping the rest of the ingredients (including a wide arrange of fresh meats and vegetables). "I hope you like stew, Asura-kun~!" she giggled happily as she retrieved a pot from underneath her kitchen counter, prepping the stew to be cooked and leaving it to do so as she leaned against the fridge to listen to Asura speak, suddenly becoming aware of his words. Fully aware.

She bit her bottom lip, curiosity prodding her to ask her next question regardless of whether or not she wished to know the answer. "I'm sorry, Asura... But I feel like I have to ask..." she mumbled, breaking into a murmur near the end of her sentence as she bounced lightly on her feet. "What kind of bad things...?" she asked, genuinely worried about him at this point. What ran through her mind was robbing and stealing at the worst, never would she have imagined that he would have done anything beyond that. As far as she knew, the boy had had a perfectly normal life and was just as rich as she was. After all, she was a gullible rich girl if nothing else. Despite this, she was determined to become understanding and wise in every way that she could. Even if it meant becoming susceptible to the worlds influence...